Re: Thankful for Poor Building Standards?

Here in Taiwan we're grateful that building standards are higher than in Turkey where if there's a major earthquake 40,000 die. Last time round in 1999 only 2,400 died - mostly through dodgy building practices (cutting corners) and that Chinese curse - an absence of common sense (Don't mill around in the courtyard of a apartment complex which has just experienced a 7.2 earthquake, waiting for the aftershocks. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that this is a bad, bad survival strategy)

Talking floods. Two summers ago I had to go out onto the roof of my building during a massive typhoon to try and bail out the flooded roof which was also flooding our house. I felt like King Lear or King Canute fruitlessly battling to reduce the water level as ever more water poured from the skies.